When, Mr. Townsend, Will Friends Of The Tariff Revise It?

When, Mr. Townsend, Will Friends Of The Tariff Revise It?

Congressional Candidate Chas. E. Townsend says he is for revision of the tariff where it needs it, but that it should be revised by its friends. But, Mr. Townsend, when would you have it revised? Your party has been in absolute control of all branches of the government for some years now and this question of revision has constantly been pressing for solution, but not one step has the republican majority made in this direction. And now that party proclaims its inability to do anything in that direction. Members of the cabinet are quoted as saying that nothing can be done with the majorities constituted as at present. The president and the leading republican senators but a few days ago decided at a conference that they would attempt nothing in this direction at the coming session. In the mean time the American consumers, because of the tariff, are compelled to pay more for American made goods than Europeans pay for the same articles. Our manufacturers are able to send their goods thousands of miles and undersell European manufacturers in the European markets, yet republicans will not consent to the change of a single schedule. These tariff assisted, special industries have built up and are sheltering monopolies to the serious detriment of every consumer and yet this republican party, the friend of extreme protection, not only resolves through its president and leading senators that it will do nothing at the  coming session of congress to correct this monstrous injustice, but the country is told that it cannot do anything with its majorities constituted as at present. When, Mr. Townsend, in the name of that large element of your own party, which is clamoring for relief, are you going to revise this iniquitous tariff which you yourself admit needs revision, and give the consumers a chance in the conflict of business equal to the opportunity you have given the special interests? The people want this relief on this side of the great divide, if they are going to have it at all. They want this matter settled in time, not in eternity. The element of time in this proposition is the all important factor, but the republicans have not a word to say on this point. Neither has Mr. Townsend.

The following letter from Mr. A. B. Farquhar, the head of the great Pennsylvania Agricultural Works, written to the Farmers' Call, a farmers' paper published at Quincy, III., shows what an honest manufacturer thinks of the tariff and its relation to the farmer: 

"The fact is that our protective laws are a monstrous swindle upon the agricultural community. As a manufacturer I was inclined to say nothing on the subject, for the reason that it was natural to suppose if anybody was benefited it was the manufacturing class to which I belong. But, as I have explained, the farmer is being destroyed. We are killing the goose that lays the golden egg. And I honestly believe now that it is to the interest of the manufacturers themselves to eliminate the protective feature from our tariff laws.

"Certainly, as our manufactured goods are sold much lower abroad, we could only need protection to get better prices from our customers at home. We do manufacture and sell in Canada, South America and Europe many agricultural machines and implements, and could we have free raw material and the commercial advantages which free trade would give us, America would become the great manufacturing emporium of the world, and the farmer, of course, would share the prosperity, since he would have less to pay for every thing and get better prices for all he sold. Go on with your good work. When the farmer begins to think and rise up against this swindle it is doomed."

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It is suspected that good, sturdy old Horace Boies has something to do with the determination of D. B. Henderson to decline to run again for congress in the third Iowa district. Speaker Henderson has been in congress for ten consecutive terms and has acquired all the elements of bourbonism and is unable to be progressive. He has affected to believe that he was another Tom Reed and could administer Reed's rules without Reed's brains, but his effort only served to bring out more glaringly the despotism of those rules and the weakness of Reed's imitator. The speaker was in danger of defeat, therefore, at the hands of an outraged constituency should he be returned to congress. Then, again, he was a bourbon on the tariff and could not accept the "Iowa idea" and he was forced to look possible defeat by his immediate constituency in the face with such a man as Horace Boies as his opponent. In this emergency he lost his head and his dignity and played the baby act.

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One of the things absolutely necessary for the people to do, if they are to have better government, is take more interest in public matters. It is true, of course, that every man cannot be a professional politician, nor is it necessary that he should be. We have too many such now. But every man should take enough interest in public matters to protect his own interests. But this is not done. Those matters of the most vital interest to the average Citizen are allowed to go without scarcely a passing thought. Taxes are piled up mountain high and the increase from year to year is out of all proportion to the increase of the public business, the population or the increase of wealth. But it is practically impossible to arouse the people over the question of extravagant and even scandalous waste of public money. Places are constantly being made for the faithful in which wholly needless clerks and employees are ensconced with practically nothing to do except to draw good fat salaries. In practically every department of both the state and national governments, one clerk could do all that three or four are required to do. To illustrate how this increase of expense goes on, it is only necessary to take a few figures at random in the departments of the state government at Lansing. The following figures show the cost of extra clerks by departments from the time of the democratic administration of 1892 to the republican administration of 1898:

1892 Democratic:

Auditor General: $40,375.69

Secretary of State: $32,705.19

Com. of Land Office: $4,581.17

Board of Health: $9,788.79

Insurance Bureau: $884.98

State Library: $1,500.00

Com. of Railroads: $1,700.20

Attorney General: $2,100.00

Supt. of Public Instruction: $3,010.00

Total for extra clerks $96,165.82

1898 Republican:

Auditor General: $114,920.97

Secretary of State: $37,807.82

Com. of Land Office: $8,394.14

Board of Health: $12,704.29

Insurance Bureau: $3,407.30

State Library: $4,947.30

Com. of Railroads: $4,243.86

Attorney General: $2,985.00

Supt. of Public Instruction: $6,245.82

Total for extra clerks $96,165.82

Republican extravagance in extra clerkships in one year: $99,490.81

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Better government can only be secured to the people by bringing it nearer the people. It will probably be generally admitted that local government, excepting possibly municipal government of our large cities, is much more honestly and economically administered than either the state or national governments. This is because the local governments are nearer the people and the people take greater interest. School district affairs, township matters and county public business are far better managed, more economically managed and with far less scandal than the affairs of the state and nation. To avoid dishonesty and extravagance in state affairs, they must be brought more directly under the control of the people themselves. Of necessity there must be representative government, but the representaives must be more closely supervised by the people. To this end there must be an effective primary election law to insure control of nominations by the people rather than bosses. Then the people must have the initiative and referendum in matters of legislation in order to hold their representatives to a stricter accountability after they are elected. As conditions are now when the people have elected representatives, the authority and control by the people lapses until the next election. During this interregnum the people's representatives are corrupted by interests antagonistic to the people's interests and there is no effective way of calling them to accountability. But with the initiative and referendum in the hands of the people they will have the power at any time to correct the evil consequences of corrupt and unrepresentative action on the part of officials. In this very fact there would lie a powerful preventive of legislation. Of course even with this machinery at the command of the people they would not have better government without attention thereto by the people, but with the machinery at hand for the correction of these evils, the power would be pretty certain to be invoked.

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Charles E. Townsend wants an effective primary election law, but those who shape the policy of his party in Michigan do not. Don't let any one think for a moment that the Blisses, the Torn. Navins, the "immortal nineteen," the Judsons, the Atwoods and others who make republican history want such a law. What a roster of statesmen we should have without a job, if we had a real primary election law in Michigan. There would be no Bliss in the governor's chair, no Tom. Navin to hurry forward ripper bilis, no "nineteen" to throttle legislation in the interest of the people, no Judson to handle the corruption funds of millionaire candidates. Primary election reform would make "extinct" politicians of this species.

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What percentage of the readers of republican newspapers of the state know that Frank C. Andrews, one of the beneficiarles of the ripper legislation in Detroit, had $75,000 of state funds in the bank which he robbed to the death? Probably this sum is being carried on the books of the state as so much cash, but the people ought to know that it was abstracted by Andrews along with Detroit board of education funds and the savings of the hundreds of poor laborers and widwws who had put their savings in the City Savings bank. The state may be able possibly to recover this money from someone, as it did in the military board steal, but it is well for the people to keep track of the matter and know what becomes of the state's claim.

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Labor organizations appear to be very generally opposed to Governor Bliss, or more correctly speaking, the individual mombers are opposed to him. This opposition is supposed to grow out of his having signed the garnishment bill passed by the last legislature which permits the garnishrnent of a laboring man's wages up to eighty per cent thereof, and also to hls known disposition to pay only the minimum wages to labor employed by him. The fact is there are so many unsatisfactory things in the record of the governor that it is pretty diffioult to find any class of our citizens that is not in greater or less part strongly opposed to Bliss' ambition to be governor for another term.

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Any effectlve prlmary election law must not be so constructed as to put a premium upon partisanship. There must be no test of party loyalty in order for a voter to vote at a primary. A citizen who has voted for otber than his party candidate at the precedlng electlon must not be required to divulge that fact before he can vote at the primary. What is desired at all times is a secret ballot and any law which requires the making public of any cltizen's vote is narrow and wrong. No primary law that requires a man to swear how he has voted at any election as a preliminary to voting at a primary will satisfy Michigan voters.

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The republicans are appealing to the people to ''let well enough alone." It is a most important question, however, to whom "well enough" applies. The anthracite coal miners will scarcely consider it as applying to them. It applies alright to the trusts and the special interests which are enjoylng the ill-gotten fruits of bought legislation in their interest. The coal consumer, the consumer of beef, steel products, sugar and alrnost every other trust controlled article, will hardly consider the "well enough" cry as an appeal to them. Of course the trusts will be satisfied to take the advice of the republican leaders and ask for no change.